Jack Elliott`s 1971 MA thesis—``Hivernant Archaeology in the Cypress Hills``—is based on an archaeological reconstruction of Cabins B and E of the Kajewski cabin site near Elkwater Alberta in the Cypress Hills. In this thesis, Jack Eliott analyzes the archaeological reconstruction of two Métis hivernant (``winterer``) cabins in the western half of the Cypress Hills. Hivernant is the French word for ``winterer,`` and in the Métis context refers to those Métis bison hunters and their families who settled during the winter in wooded, sheltered environments on the southern prairies such as the Cypress Hills, Wood Mountain, and Willow Bunch. These locales offered shelter from fierce prairie winters and provided game, wood, and fresh water. At the Kajewski site, Jack noticed that in the bison processing pits and in other areas of the cabin floors, there was a mixture of Euro-Canadian/American iron tools and older, Pre-Contact-style First Nation’s stone tools. At the time, archaeologists were puzzled by this mixture of tool cultures at the site and within its stratigraphy (the layer of sedimentation at an archaeological site), suggesting that the Métis at these wintering sites used the ``old`` and ``new`` tools interchangeably. Archaeologists thought it curious that the Métis hivernants willingly used stone tools when ``better`` iron tools were available to scrap bison hides and cut meat. Jack argued that the Métis used both tool types while his colleagues thought otherwise. This debate has continued to this day.

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